Tag Archives: creativity

Easter!

At the end of last term, everyone thoroughly enjoyed our topic of Easter. We spoke about the Easter story, different signs of spring like flowers and baby animals and made lots of lovely easter crafts. We went on a sensory walk and could hear the birds and wondered what they might be up too at this time of year. The children thought that they might be building nests for their chicks.  We did some research online about different birds and their nests and also the different sounds that they made. A favourite was the eagle call! The children decided they wanted to have their own nest in nursery so they could be birds and chicks too. So we walked up to Mrs Smith’s house as she had lots of big branches and sticks and the children picked the ones that they thought would be good for their nest and helped carry them back to nursery.  They helped place to big sticks around the outside so it made the nest strong and sturdy and the smaller ones on the inside, sometimes doing some weaving as they went along.  When it was finished we made chick hats and enjoyed playing in the little nest we made!  To round off our Easter topic we  had an Easter egg hunt! There was clues all around nursery then we had to follow which lead us to the forest where everyone found and Easter egg to take home!

 

 

 

 

Term 3!

Term 3 started off very different this year with some children learning from home and some at nursery within the hubs. Then we were all reunited in February back at nursery and it was non stop fun until the holidays! Here are a few highlights from term 3.

We had great fun playing outside last term in all sorts of weather.  We went on some lovely walks down to the shore to see the swans and other wildlife and walked all the way to the crofthouse! We visited the pond lots to see the frogs and frogspawn. We spoke about the life cycle of a frog and other animals as Spring was approaching and we thought about how to stay safe around the pond.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Water play was very popular this term, we made puddles to splash in, painted the sheds, had water fights, made potions with paint and made rivers with the pipes. We used little boats to have races with.

Trips to the forest have been great fun playing hide and seek and climbing trees! The children have also made houses and cafes which was perfect to hide under when it was raining! We brought out our gardening equipment and de-weeded our planters so we were ready for planting after the holidays.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inside we really loved having the soft play, the craft table was always very busy and the sand and rice activities were very popular using the scales and measuring jugs. The children loved packing suitcases so we had a little Airport in nursery, there were holidays to Disneyland and South Africa!  We used the check in tags and stickers we were kindly donated from Sumburgh Airport. The kids also put on a super frozen performance for the teachers to enjoy and on the last day of term we treated ourselves to a pajama and movie day!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fun this week and a sad farewell to Mrs Fraser

Some of our learning in week 2 looked like this….

Team work and tall towers!
Building at height
Creating complex structures
Off we go in our boat!


BLOCK PLAY

How many different ways can a block be used?

“Lets make a campfire”
Cooking on the campfire

 

“Can I go inside?”

S A N D

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

W A T E R

 

Mrs Fraser donated a trampoline to Nursery!

 

Bonfire and fireworks

Messy, messaging, mark making and…

M A P S!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Following our interest last term of treasure hunting and maps some of us decided to make our own treasure maps! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We followed them to see if we could find X marks the spot…

T R E A S U R E !

 

Treasure!

 

Exploring the early concepts of coding

 

 

 

 

 

We are very sad to say goodbye to Mrs Fraser!

We wish her all the best in her new post. The bairns gave her a good send off…

 

Queen for the day!

They made her a crown and declared her Queen for the day!

She chose to listen to country music which everyone loved dancing too, we had cake for snack, played with bubbles and the bairns helped her follow clues on her treasure hunt in the afternoon.

 

A Lovely relaxing hand massage to finish off the day!

 

Thank you Mrs Fraser, we will miss you!

Week 5!

We have had a super busy week and are now half way through  term 1 already!

We started off the week by making our family trees. We molded clay for our tree trunks and stuck in twigs from our forest. We left them to dry and will draw our family members on the leaves that we have gathered from the forest to stick to our twigs!

We have been making playdoh for baking in our kitchen and been for walks to the forest and play park. On Thursday we all got our waterproofs on and made a big puddle in our playground to splash in. We then decided to go on a puddle hunt to find a bigger puddle!

We have LOVED having the rice in the tuff tray to measure, pour, weigh, make rice cakes with and so much more!

We have been dancing and exploring to different genres of music, rock and Shetland dance was a firm favourite! We discussed how different types of music makes us feel and what it makes us want to do (run, jump, sleep). We then tried to match it to each of the colour monsters depending on how it made the children feel (happy, sad, calm, angry, love, scared).

On Friday we had the magnets out in our loose parts and watched a video about magnetism and why magnets repel and attract. We discovered lots of things in nursery that were magnetic and also found out that we could move the magnetic balls on the tuff tray with a magnet underneath which was very exciting!

In the afternoon we went to the OOSC garden and forest to play hide and seek and found 2 frogs! The one in the garden was a small frog so we decided to put it back to the pond. But the one in the forest was a big one so we left it in the long grass!

More Advent Calendar Fun….

What a wonderful time we have had celebrating the countdown to Christmas with the bairns.  Each child had enjoyed having their own specially tailored activity to share with their friends.

We have continued our fun with…..

Funny faces snack made by Jeanne…

 

A Christmas present hunt in the forest led by Willum….

 

 

 

 

Sophie decorated our bikes and scooters to make them all Christmassy….

…and Leva led the Christmas Reindeer race!

Some Christmas playdoh made by Titus….

 

 

Christmas Carol Concert

Wir bairns were absolute stars at their Christmas Concert!  What an amazing achievement to stand on stage and perform in front of such a big audience.

The bairns chose their own words to the tune of “Ten Little Elves”, to create their own version of a Christmas song.  They thoroughly enjoyed the process and the confidence gained from having ownership of their own song, was clear to be seen from the amazing participation, singing and happy faces with which they performed ….and of course the fact that they are all still singing it a week later!

We are all so proud of every one of them. Here’s a snap shot of their performances…..

  

Our Learning in Term 1

Hello everyone, apologies for our lack of posts for a while, there was a blip with our blog, but hopefully it’s all sorted now.

Here is a snapshot of our learning fun last term!……

…..Da bairns were really interested in exploring different materials,  their properties and uses.  They experimented to see if the material waterproof, strong, heavy, light, could float or sink.

  

……Then they explored their uses.  Could they build with it, could it stack, could it hold it’s shape…….

…..They took their learning outside to explore further where they experimented with forces and how things move…..

….Some bairns were very interested in magnetic forces, push and pull and others really enjoyed exploring mark making in the sand using different tools and materials.

….Magnus explored forces of push and pull using his body and feet – he even made his own ski’s!

We had lots of fun outside as always………

…building, climbing…

…..Jumping, sunbathing….

 

 

 

…..flying kites, experimenting with sound, pony jumps and building….

….Bikes and scooters pedalling with a passenger and negotiating corners with an extra wide bike!

…..Pony cuddles, walks to the shore,

 

 

 

 

 

…..and of course jumping in muddy puddles!

 

 

 

 

 

 

….And finally…..

…..baking, tea parties, painting with pineapples and pineapple play doh…..

 

 

….cosy stories, colour sorting and lemon tasing…..

…….music making, instrument skills, rhythm….

 

 

 

 

 

We were kindly donated an amazing castle!  The bairns carefully followed the instructions to build the castle themselves and some went on to make their own castles using all their knowledge of building and material properties they had already learned in their experiments….

 

Stay and Play

What a glorious day it was for our last Stay and Play day this term!

We were all very busy painting, sanding, watering and building while the sun shone, but the highlight was most definitely building our Fire Pit at the end of the day to toast marshmallows and eating “shmores”!

Painting!………..

Making trampolines……..

Sanding, ready to build……..

”We look like scientists!” (Maximus)

Gardening and making planters……

 

Making fire, toasting marshmallows…..yum!….

The Fire Pit was a big hit with staff, bairns and parents.  Providing children such experiences with real tools and fire allow our children to directly experience and gain knowledge about the nature these things and of open flames within a safe and controlled environment. They develop a respect for fire and the skills to keep themselves safe, which they can apply throughout their lives.

We all had a fabulous afternoon in the sunshine.  Big thanks to John the Janny and all the parents who donated items and came along to help.  Some even managed a sneaky marshmallow or two!